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Friday, July 14, 2017

Why there cannot be peace, and what could show that that obstacle is gone

Sar Shalom

Nearly everyone either declares that peace must be brought between Israel and the Palestinians or that doing so is impossible. For those who declare that it is impossible, a common argument is that the Palestinian Authority (PA) gives payments to terrorists. Supporters of Israel are correct to complain about such payments and the Taylor Force Amendment, which would bar US funding for the PA as long as such payments continue, would be a positive development if enacted. However, the payments are not the cause of peace being impossible, they are merely symptoms of that cause. The actual cause of peace being unattainable is fundamental rejectionism by the Palestinians.

For the diehard peace processor, it is axiomatic that the Palestinians do not fundamentally reject Israel's existence, that they only want the land that the international community considers to be rightfully theirs. Bolstering that argument, they trot out the interviews in which Abbas has supposedly recognized Israel. One issue with this is that there is no reason to accept these claims by Abbas at face value which would not require accepting Netanyahu's claims of accepting the eventuality of a Palestinian state nor is there any reason to accept that Netanyahu's campaign statements against the emergence of such a state are many more definitive of Netanyahu's position than Abbas' Arabic statements declaring devotion to all of Palestine are definitive of Abbas' position. However, that is not how to demonstrate that the PA fundamentally rejects Israel in any form.

If the PA fundamentally rejects Israel in any form, and thus has as its goal of "liberating" every last dunam under Jewish control, then its top priority would be to inculcate this rejectionism in its subjects, because if the Palestinian were to stop rejecting Israel fundamentally, then there would no troops to carry out the mission. However, as Einat Wilf has said, most people do not readily sign up for causes that they believe to be evil. Thus inculcating such fundamental rejectionism requires portraying Zionism as fundamentally evil within no redeeming aspect. In pursuit of this indoctrination, the PA instills three major points in its public:

The Jews are not a people, they're only a religion.

The Jewish connection to the land is made up.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion accurately describes Israel's agenda

While the PA might be motivated by the belief that as Allah's master faith that it is their right to enforce the natural order in which the Jews are everywhere and always an abased people under others' domination. However, convincing their people to subscribe to that viewpoint is like convincing people to sign up for evil. Instead, these three points portray Israel as evil and remove every motive except European colonialism from Zionism, thus brainwashing them into believing that pursuing Israel's complete end is a just cause.

In order for there to be a chance for peace to advance, the PA needs to say three things:

The Jews are a people.

The Jewish people are deeply connected to the Land of Israel in general, and Jerusalem in particular.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a forgery.

All declarations contrary to those three statements must be removed from all official communications. Doing so would not guarantee that the PA accepts Israel right, as opposed to might, to be in the Middle East. However, it would make it harder to raise a generation that accepts at most the might of Israel to exist. As such, the message we should tell our leaders should not be to accept the settlements in Kiryat Arba or to crack down on Palestinian terror. Rather, it should be to insist that Abbas make the aforementioned three part declaration and cease all official communications contradicting any part of that declaration, and that there will be no pressure on Israel to talk until those conditions are met.

"Nearly everyone either declares that peace must be brought between Israel and the Palestinians"

I don't. There are scores of interminable conflicts in the world. This is just one more. Realistically it doesn't matter what the Israelis do or don't do. At all. Arabs predicate their entire existence on the premise that Israel cannot exist, that Jews cannot exist. To them it's irrelevant what Israel and/or Jews do or don't do. It's axiomatic that we can ignore all Arabs and everything they do and say. Forever. Because it doesn't matter TO ARABS what Israel does. It doesn't matter what Jews say. They've told us for a thousand years that if they can't exterminate us they'll sniff the tears, shake their fists, take their ball and go home. Ok go home. Pick out nice rock bang your head on it. I don't care, don't notice and don't worry about it.

Too bad the politicians haven't had it. Realistically, the only thing that will ever fix this stuff is if Israel elects a REAL right wing government which won't take any shit from anybody. Of course no one wants that but wishy washy is never going to get anything done. Like ripping off a bandaid; no one wants to do it because it hurts, but....

Hatred of Israel/Jews is too ingrained in Pals/Arabs and their Western fellow travelers for any peace any time soon. Of course that lot also hates everybody else a well who isn't part of their cadre. Peace will come when they overcome their hate; around the 12th of Never based on history so far.

There is no historic precedent of Arab-Muslims making a full, durable, definite, genuine peace with, what they call, infidels. World's submission to Islam is their irreversible, uncompromising "Devine calling" and final objective.

A few centuries ago, there was no precedent for Christendom making durable, genuine peace with, what they called, infidels. When Christians who rejected the notion that you can't be a good Christian without being at war against infidels started to gain influence, there was no movement that said that favoring such theology against the theology against infidels constituted a war on Christianity. That is the problem we face in inducing the same change in Islam.

Sar Shalom, we cannot induce a change in Islam. Only Muslims can do that. This does not mean that I think that there is no hope, but I do think that our hope in maintaining Jewish sovereignty and self-defense in Israel depend not on their agreement, but on our behavior... or on Israel actions, its determination, its strength of will.

Perhaps the West needs first to be convinced of Palestinian Arab malevolence. After all, they lost and western governments and media keep indulging these fantasies encouraging them to fight on against a country that wants no part their war.Maybe when the West is exposed to the farcical nature of the claims they use to indoctrinate their people, and have been indoctrinating westerners with, the money stream for this destructive nonsense will dry up. One need not go to ME to hear the spewing of Palestinian/master faith propaganda. It's so wide widespread and accepted in western institutions, why would Abbas stop!?Why should they stop lying when so many are not just willing to believe them, but anxious to embrace their lies?

Jeff, they PAY terrorists to kill Jews and still the world adores the beasts. NOTHING will diminish the support they have. Even with Trump in office, the payments to the terrorist paymasters continue despite American rhetoric (and pretty much ONLY American rhetoric.)

Follow the money upstream and kill those responsible for financing. In the most gruesome and public way. Have some plausible deniability, but leave no doubt why. You'll only have to kill a few. Then peace will come.

The main reason there can be no peace is that no Palestinian has a mandate to make peace. Hell, Abbas et al can't even end the payments to Jew killers let alone stop incitement and education for resistance aka Jew killing. It's a sad joke. there will ONLY be peace when Israel kicks Palestine's ass so bad that it sues for peace or better yet until Israel demands unconditional surrender. Historically, the second option is he best one. Lack of one in WW1 partially led to WW2 when the "stabbed in the back," myth arose emboldening German hawks for another kick at the can. You can bet that without a future unconditional surrender, Palestinian/Arab discontents will invoke being stabbed in the back and look for future chances to make war. So, unconditional surrender and a Palestinian version of DE-Nazification is the only real choice eventually. Of course, the "international community," will go nuts but f**k them.

"The waiting police officers made clear to Ahmed Omar al-Kiswani, the director of al-Aqsa Mosque, and to chief Sharia judge Wasef al-Bakri, that they need not pass through the metal detectors and could enter the Temple Mount compound directly. But instead of entering, the Waqf officials halted theatrically, and suddenly begin shouting in protest against Israel’s ostensible “attack on the Al-Asqa Mosque. We won’t agree to this violation of the status quo, and we will only return to the mosque once it is restored,” they yelled. “We will not accept security checks at Al-Aqsa… Don’t go through the gates,” they urged.

Immediately, a swelling crowd responded with chants of “Allahu Akbar.” The entourage accompanying the Waqf officials and other would-be worshipers then moved slowly away from the metal detectors and began their afternoon prayers there and then, outside the Temple Mount.”

"The House on Friday rejected a controversial GOP proposal identifying “Islamic religious doctrines, concepts or schools of thought” that could be used by terrorist groups — something opponents say is unconstitutional and will lead to the targeting of Muslims.

More than 20 centrist Republicans joined with Democrats to defeated the amendment, 208 to 217. Drafted by conservative Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), the proposal called for the Pentagon to identify Islamic leaders who preach peaceful beliefs versus those who espouse extremist views."

Yes it is true that the Palestinians are committing terrorism and devoting a vast portion of their economy to supporting it. The latest on the Temple Mount is an equivalent outrage. Ideally, civilized people should realize that no cause justifies that. Unfortunately, that is not the world we live. For too many people, the fantasy view of the Palestinians' objectives justifies it all.

Instead of banging our heads against the wall repeatedly about westerners' inability to get that even their fantasies about the Palestinians objectives do not justify their terror and their other antics, why not try to expose the fantasy of their objectives as just that, a fantasy. To borrow Benny Morris' phrasing, their objective is to restore the Jews to their "proper" place in Middle Eastern society, which is an abased minority in a Muslim polity. Listing Palestinian actions means nothing unless you tie it to that theme.

Does it really matter if the people who hate us eventually shift direction to see some of our point of view, some of the time under circumstances that THEY, not us, can live with? Like any defense lawyer will tell you "you take your client as they are not as you wish they are". If it can't help your case to know if your client is guilty, then don't ask and you won't have to possibly lie about it later. If it can't help your case to struggle with pretending your enemies will pretend they don't hate you, then don't do it.

"such and such cannot proceed until persons x y and z comply with my wishes....."

Ok, they won't talk until we agree to ALL of their conditions before during and after talking......which is stupid. And we won't talk unless and until they drop the defining framework of their entire agenda.

This can't possibly work. In nearly a century Jabotinsky has never been shown to be wrong. Not ever. The clearest most crystallized description was, is and always will be "The Iron Wall". Good or bad, whatever you think of Jews permitted to live anywhere in Israel, inside the green line, outside the green line, wherever, it still comes down to this one thing; separation. Absolute separation.

I think that what bothers me about what you've written here, Sar Shalom, is not that I think you are wrong, but that you are proposing that the resolution is dependent upon some sort of compromise agreeable to both sides.

But as you are well aware the Palestinian-Arabs have zero interest in compromise.

Is there any situation where the resolution is not dependent on a compromise that is agreeable to both sides? You are correct that the Palestinian-Arabs have no interest in compromise. The resolution of that paradox is that there is no solution to the conflict for the time being.

Unfortunately, we can't just announce that there is no solution and walk away from the talks accordingly. We have to make the case that there is no solution. That is what I set out to do.

My aim is not to change tack in dealings with the Arabs, but to change tack in what we demand from those who claim to be our supporters. Most of what I wrote described the problem, and I didn't get to my proposed course of action until that problem and thus how my course of action would have effect were established. To recap, that recommendation is for the US to demand a three-fold declaration from the PA as a condition for any assistance of any kind.

Now, if we were to extract that out of the Trump administration, what would be the effect? There are two possible lines. One is that Abbas would comply and make the declaration, the other is that he would ignore it.

Although it's fanciful, I'll start with the case of Abbas complying. An immediate consequence is that he could get called out for the UNESCO resolutions he's pushed denying Jewish ties to Jerusalem. More subtly, it would undermine the case that he's been making to his people that it is their right to expel the Jews. As Einat Wilf has described (http://www.wilf.org/English/2015/01/07/personal-experiences-shaped-views-israeli-palestinian-conflict/), that right comes from the "fact" that the Jews are not a people, just a religion, and that the Jews' connection to the Land of Israel is made up to justify taking the Palestinians' land. If they hear consistently from their own leaders that both points are false, some will question their right to dispossess the Jews which would undermine the determination of future generations to do so.

It is not guaranteed that this would happen. But the chance is too high for Abbas to risk that it would. Therefore, we need to consider what would happen when Abbas refuses to make the declaration. Assuming the administration does not bluff and actually ends all support, particularly diplomatic support, for the PA in response, the usual suspects, major newspapers, European capitals, etc., will rant on about the unreasonable response. One possible line of attack would be that we have not cut off assistance due to any of the terror attacks, why should the refusal to make a declaration be any different. Our response would have to be to force those challenging the demand to defend Abbas' refusal to comply.

Unlike the case of terrorism, there is no reason that the western world holds as legitimate to refuse this declaration. This leaves two possible ways to defend the refusal to comply. One is to argue that one of the three points is false. Media across the Arab world would exhibit this. However, the West will hold declaring any one of the three false is a declaration of being an anti-Semite. The other defense is to claim that non-declaration is irrelevant, that Abbas could refuse to make the declaration and still make the concessions for peace and that Israel should be satisfied in getting those concessions. What I argue is that refusal to make the declaration is ipso facto proof of fundamental rejectionism. If fundamental rejectionism reigns among the Palestinians, then the most that Israel can get out of negotiations is a Trojan horse and if Abbas proves that the most he will give is a Trojan horse, then Israel has every right not to talk, and the US should apply no pressure for Israel to prepare to accept the Trojan horse.

Barack Obama on the so-called "Arab Spring" (May 19, 2011):

"There are times in the course of history when the actions of ordinary citizens spark movements for change because they speak to a longing for freedom that has been building up for years. In America, think of the defiance of those patriots in Boston who refused to pay taxes to a King, or the dignity of Rosa Parks as she sat courageously in her seat."

The "Arab Spring" was the brutal rise of political Islam in the Middle East and this is what Obama compares the Civil Rights Movement to?

The Fundamental Argument:

The progressive movement, and the activist base of the Democratic Party, creates and supports venues that demonize and defame the Jewish state, thereby also creating hatred toward the Jewish people.

Such venues include political journals, such as, but not limited to, Daily Kos, the Huffington Post, and the UK Guardian, numerous universities throughout the United States and Europe, various NGOs with an anti-Israel agenda, and the entire progressive-left movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction (BDS) the Jewish people of the state of Israel.

These venues and organizations do not generally criticize Israel, but dehumanize that country.

For this reason, among others, the progressive movement, and the activist base of the Democratic Party, undermines the well-being and safety of Jews around the world, sometimes resulting in violence toward us.

Therefore, as a matter of common sense and basic human decency, Jews should leave the progressive movement and the Democratic Party as we seek to build alternative political structures that are not home to toxic anti-Semitic anti-Zionists, who would see us robbed of self-determination and self-defense.

What You Can't Discuss:

This is a partial list of taboo topics within progressive-left venues around the Arab-Israel conflict. You cannot discuss this material because it undermines the "Palestinian narrative" of perpetual victimhood. This narrative is a club used by the Arab and Muslim enemies of Israel, along with their western progressive allies, to delegitimize that country in preparation for its eventual dissolution.

1) The centuries of Jewish dhimmitude under the boot of Islamic imperialism.

2) The recent construction of Palestinian identity, its connection to Soviet Cold War politics, and how this is an Arab people with a Roman name that refers to Greeks.

3) Arab and Palestinian Koranically-based racism as the fundamental source of the conflict.

4) The ways in which contemporary progressive anti-Zionism serves as a cloak for gross anti-Semitism.

5) The Palestinian theft and appropriation of Jewish history.

6) "Pallywood."

7) The historical connections between the Nazis, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Palestinian national movement.

8) The perpetual refusal of the Palestinian-Arabs to accept a state for themselves in peace next to the Jewish one.

9) The progressive portrayal of terrorists as those fighting a righteous war of "resistance."

10) The Arab-Palestinian indoctrination of children with Jew hatred.

11) Human rights violations against women, children, and Gay people in the Muslim Middle East.

12) The fact that violent Jihadis call themselves "Jihadis" and claim to love death above life.

This is only a partial list, so please let us know the many more that we are missing.

Quote of the Whenever:

It is not that most progressives are anti-Semitic. They aren't. It's that they don't get it, they don't care, and they very much want you to shut the fuck up. - Michael Lumish